THE IMITATIVE FACULTY OF INFANTS. 253 



ings, but acts spontaneously. If I clear my throat, or cougli 

 purposely, without lookhig at the child, he often gives a little 

 cough likewise in a comical manner. If I ask, " Did the child 

 cough ? " or if I ask him, " Can you cough ? " he coughs, but 

 generally copying less accurately (in the fourteenth and fifteenth 

 months). The bow too tightly strained shoots beyond the mark. 



Here, besides pure imitation, there is already understanding 

 of the name of the imitated movement with the peculiar noise. 



This important step in knowledge once taken, the movements 

 imitated become more and more complicated, and are more and 

 more connected with objects of daily experience. In the fifteenth 

 month the child learns to blow out a candle. He puffs from six 

 to ten times in vain, and grasx)S at the flame meantime, laughs 

 when it is extinguished, and exerts himself, after it has been 

 lighted, in blowing or breathing, with cheeks puffed out and lips 

 protruded to an unnecessary degree, because he does not imitate 

 accurately. For it can hardly be that a child that has never seen 

 how a candle can be blown out would hit upon the notion of 

 blowing it out. Understanding and experience are not yet suf- 

 ficient to make this discovery. 



I find, in general, that the movements made for imitation are 

 the more easily imitated correctly the less complicated they are. 

 • When I opened and shut my hand alternately, merely for the 

 purpose of amusing the child, he suddenly began to open and 

 shut his right hand likewise in quite similar fashion. The re- 

 semblance of his movement to mine was extremely surprising in 

 comparison with the awkward blowing out of the candle in the 

 previous instance. It is occasioned by the greater simplicity. 

 Yet, simple as the bending of the finger seems, it requires, never- 

 theless, so many harmonious impulses, nerve-excitements, and 

 contractions of muscular fibers, that the imitation of simple 

 movements even can hardly be understood without taking into 

 account the element of heredity, since unusual movements, never 

 performed, it may be, by ancestors — say, standing on the head — 

 are never, under any circumstances, imitated correctly at the first 

 attempt. The opening and shutting of the hand is just one of 

 the movements by no means unusual, but often performed by 

 ancestors. Still, it is to be noticed that at the beginning the imi- 

 tation proceeded very slowly, although correctly. On the very 

 next day it was much more rapid on the repetition of the at- 

 tempt, and the child, surprised by the novelty of the experience, 

 now observed attentively first my hand and then his own (fif- 

 teenth month). 



Of the numerous more complicated movements of the suc- 

 ceeding period, the following, also, may be mentioned, in order 

 to show the rapid progress in utilizing a new retinal image for 



